Here is the Cutting Edge Metal team’s roundup of the essential new metal album releases this week…
The Agonist, Orphans
© 2019 Napalm Records Handels GmbH under exclusive license to Rodeostar GmbH
More extreme, more melodic, more exciting and simply larger than life: The Agonist are back!
Following their critically acclaimed album Five, released in 2016, the extreme metal juggernaut from Montreal, Canada, has released a first single and announced the first and hotly anticipated details of their brand new record, due out September 20th 2019 on Rodeostar Records.
Exhorder, Mourn the Southern Skies
© 2019 Nuclear Blast
Formed in the late '80s out of a common interest in speed and doom metal, Exhorder helped shape the "Louisiana sound," a common sound shared between many metal bands from the state. By crafting chugging, tight riffs with a rigid structure, Exhorder made quite the local impression with 1990's Slaughter in the Vatican. Although dismissed by some because of the title and front cover, the album paved the way for Pantera's Cowboys From Hell and helped turn the thrash genre into a new direction. 1992's The Law did not have the same effect, and the band eventually split because of the direction vocalist Kyle Thomas wanted to take the music. He went on to form Floodgate with his brother, while guitarist Jay Ceravolo formed Fall From Grace.
Detraktor, Grinder
© 2019 Detraktor
What happens if a Chilean, a Brazilian and a Bulgarian, based in Canada, all musicians who have come to Hamburg from all directions, decide in the dark, cold Northern winter nights to start a band? They call themselves DETRAKTOR, get off a lightning start, release their first EP "Sunday Thrash" in 2015, represent Germany at the worldwide Wacken Metal Battle, record their second EP "Size Matters", which also features Dirk Schlaechter (GAMMA RAY) as producer an in charge for the basslines and win the Metal Hammer Award for “Newcomer of the Year 2018”.
As I Lay Dying, Shaped by Fire
© 2019 Nuclear Blast
Flames fuel rebirth. In the wake of the conflagration, future possibilities flourish out of the ashes. Reigniting a brotherhood dating back nearly two decades, As I Lay Dying rise together on their seventh full-length and debut for Nuclear Blast, the aptly titled Shaped By Fire. The San Diego quintet—Tim Lambesis [vocals], Jordan Mancino [drums], Phil Sgrosso [guitar], Nick Hipa [guitar], and Josh Gilbert [bass]—rally together and recharge the precise and pummeling metallic assault that transformed them into a turn-of-the-century heavy music phenomenon.
Chemicide, Inequality
© 2019 PRC Music
Chemicide started a few years ago in San Jose, Costa Rica with the idea of bringing back music that we like but with our own twist to it. We try to talk about things that happen all across the world but we have to focus on our reality in Central America. Thank you for listening to our music, we just hope you can spread a positive message and help others around you.
Vader, Thy Messenger
© 2019 Nuclear Blast
Since their founding in 1983, Vader (named for Star Wars' dark lord, of course), Poland's premier death metal band, have been through many lineup changes. Only founding vocalist/guitarist Piotr "Peter" Wiwczarek remains from the original incarnation. Along with the many personnel changes came musical evolution: Vader were founded as a power metal band who quickly embraced thrash, then speed metal, before embracing their ever-evolving, always-brutal brand of death metal. Perseverance was key: They toured Eastern Europe and issued only self-released outings for a decade -- which included Morbid Lust, a cassette demo that sold some 10,000 copies and scored them a deal with Earache for their proper studio debut, 1994's The Ultimate Incantation. After relentless touring and issues with the label, they went on their way, cutting and releasing records wherever they could. They signed to Metal Blade for 2000's breakthrough Litany and remained there until moving over to Nuclear Blast for 2009's Necropolis. 2016's The Empire, issued 33 years after they formed, proved so successful that the band stayed out for two full years to support it globally; audiences embraced Vader's particularly athletic and extreme death metal aesthetic.